


School's Out

by sigynrising (snowangelaziraphale)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (cas has a hobby), (non-explicit and off screen but just in case that bothers anyone), Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Baker Gabriel, F/F, F/M, M/M, Pining, Road Trip, Sock Puppets, Veteran Dean, because garth, cheesy happy family, etsy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 14:24:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4749704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowangelaziraphale/pseuds/sigynrising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester has it all. No really- he's the luckiest guy in the world. Or so he'd like to think. Plagued by nightmares and taunted by the past, Dean can't shake memories of long days under the Kansas sun, of drinking and baseball and big baby blues.</p>
<p>Cas Novak's got it okay. He's sleeping in his brothers' attic, but at least Gabe and Alfie talk to him. He has his job at the Gas-N-Sip, and moonlights making beautiful things for strangers on Etsy. Some nights he likes to sit up and remember a time when he was large and loud and full of life.</p>
<p>You can find them all around the country- baristas and bankers, parents and preachers. They're the lost class of Lawrence High 2010, and life just didn't turn out as expected. They're lonely, they're lost and they're disillusioned. Enough's enough. The Winchesters are changing their fate and hitting the road. Armed with a yearbook, a GPS and the power of classic rock they're on a country-wide crusade to round up friends and foes alike for a pilgrimage to the old high school. Rivalries will be remembered and lost loves rekindled, but how much of what they remember is real? And it's not like everyone's gonna be up for the trip...right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	School's Out

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So I originally posted this a few months ago, but with exams starting and my confidence at a low, I took down this first chapter because I knew I couldn't commit to such a long story. I'm now an English major with a lot more free time on my hands, and I've spent the summer tapping away at this tale of mine! I'm hoping to post at least once a fortnight, and once a week once I really hit my stride :) Each chapter will feature one or two characters from Dean's high school class and culminate with a mass reunion at the old high school. I hope you guys will like it :)

Dean opens his eyes- not with a scream, but with a sigh. It’s an improvement, he guesses.

  His phone tells him it’s almost four am. Perfect. The room is dark, blackness thick and congealed in the sticky summer air. He shifts his weight to the side, rolls onto his back. The bed’s old as dirt and not quite as comfortable, sheets scratchy and covered in bobbles. He kicked his blanket to the floor hours ago, and a loose spring is digging into his back. Plastic stars glow dully down at him from where he stuck them almost fifteen years ago, when he was seven. A lifetime ago. The years haven’t been kind, and some warped, ass-backwards part of him still longs for a different set of stars, the kind which peer softly down in their millions from the clear Kandahar sky.

He knows he’s not there now, has finally orientated himself to his surroundings. The Texas heat’s a bitch, but it’s not a patch on Afghanistan. Even so, Dean tucks his phone into the elastic strap of his pyjama bottoms, swings his legs out of Aunt Ellen’s guest bed and pads downstairs in search of water.

Just to the left of the kitchen is Jo’s room, and he peers through the crack of her open door as he passes. She doesn’t like the dark much, and she’s not been sleeping well, which is enough to set the mother hen in Dean all a-flap.

It looks like his brother’s beaten him to it. Sammy’s lanky frame is curled protectively around Jo, her blonde head cradled by his strong shoulder. They bracket each other neatly amidst a sloppy scramble of blankets and pillows, and Dean can’t resist snapping a quick picture with his phone. Not even for blackmail purposes- just because.

 Civilian life really has made him soft.

He can’t fight a yawn as he fills his glass from the rusted chrome tap, holding the lukewarm cup to his heat-flushed cheek. There hadn’t been any nightmares for months now. He’d seen the therapists, done the yoga, said his prayers and brushed his teeth. The Kool-Aid was well and truly drunk. It had worked too, sort of- he hadn’t rattled the roof tiles with his yelling more than ten times this past half year. Result. He brings the glass up to his mouth, not drinking yet, just tapping it against his teeth and enjoying the lap of the water against his dry lips. The bulb above the cooker is on the fritz, blinking curiously down at him. He’ll fix it tomorrow, needs to run to the hardware store for Grandma Deanna anyway. Somewhere outside an owl hoots, in high harmony with the mosquito buzz of the battered blue fridge, to which old photos are haphazardly tacked. His very favourite lies smack in the middle, large and creased by dozens of fond thumb strokes.

It’s them, all of them. The best family in the world. Two fathers, three mothers, a full compliment of grandparents and four grinning, lighthearted siblings stood in order of age, himself standing proudly at the top of the line. The old Lawrence house looms in the background, blue and white Kansas Royals banners whipped into a snapping frenzy by the wind. It touches each of the thirteen beaming faces, tinting their cheeks a soft pink- they are a sprawling tangle of limbs, of wind-tossed hair and crinkled eyes. His Mom, still beautiful in her middle years, throws a playful arm around Kate on one side and Ellen on the other, all of them like sisters since childhood, close enough to withstand even Kate’s marriage to Mary’s one time husband. Dean’s own father, and Sam’s. John himself is burly and bullish, feet planted stubbornly apart even as his eyes glow with happiness and his hands proudly clasp his youngest son’s shoulders. In appearance the two men are different as night and day but for how Adam smirks at the camera, his father’s arrogance in every line of his sixteen year old face. Sam, two years older, pretends to sulk where his grandmothers cling to his huge arms, but his half smile is clear and gentle. Jo wields playing cards triumphantly beside Grandpa Samuel and Uncle Bobby, both bowing to her superior skill, and their Pops, Henry, presses a gentle kiss to his wife’s aged cheek. Millie still glows and blushes with girlish joy, Grandma Deanna chuckling away beside her. Sam had orchestrated the whole thing with his fancy photo-timing app, and Dean had to admit it was worth the chick-flick nature of the moment. The photo was overflowing with love, radiated it in every line and pixel, and Dean had carried a copy with him for every mile he’d walked in the hot Afghani desert.

He was one lucky son of a bitch. His family were his whole world, blood or not, and his three younger siblings- half, blood and honorary- were his closest friends. Hell, he even had a pretty cool gang of cousins up north who sent down cookies at Christmas and weird birthday cards every January.

_Happy Birthday Tinsel Tits!_

Fucking Gwen.

Point was, Dean was literally surrounded right now by people who loved him. Kate told him once he drew people together, brought out the strongest love they were capable of and gave it back ten times over. She’d called him the soul of their weird-ass family and he’d squeezed her tightly, tucked his face into her honey-blonde hair and wondered if he believed it. Then she tried to tell him about how this one time she tried to parachute from the roof of her sorority house with a pair of her boyfriend’s boxers, so he’d taken away her mojito and suggested she lie down for a while. Ellen was a vicious mixer.

He had it all, he really did. He’d had even more once, but he’d screwed it up. No point crying over it, no point being greedy. This was enough, it had to be enough. Who the hell could ask for more?  

_He can’t help it._

His phone flashes, a Snapchat or something Sam had downloaded for him. He picks it up

_**tricky_trickster69 sent you a Snapchat** _

and drops it back onto the counter with a snort. It clicks against the laminated wood and he follows the movement with his eyes, down until his chin rests comfortably on his folded arms. He’s sleepy.

_“Ass out like a pin-up! Whoo!”_

The echo reverberates through the intervening years and Dean half-groans, half-laughs. Fuckin’ Gabriel. The asshole is right there clear as day, propped against the kitchen counter, five feet and change of attitude and caramel.

“Figures you’d be staring, shortstop,” he whispers, trying to keep his tone light. Gabe’s twenty three years old in Dean’s memories, the same age Dean is now. He’d seemed so grown-up, so clued in back in the day. Dean couldn’t imagine how hard he’d had to work to fake it.

He sniggers, awful fuckin’ sassy for a figment of Dean’s exhausted imagination, and heaves himself up onto the counter, legs swinging insolently. Dean expects to hear them click against the counter. “Hell no, man, that’s for Cas.”

Oh, yeah.

Well this just got really fucking depressing, so Dean shakes his head with a sigh and Gabriel fades back into memory. His imagination’s sharp as a scalpel tonight, and trying to slice open old wounds that still throbbed a bit too often.

_For Cas._

He should try get some more shut-eye, is what he should do, and so he turns about-face and heads for the stairs.

“Honey?” he hears a soft voice call from the hallway, and tiptoes through the hall back towards the source of it. The living room.

Four figures lounge on couches and cushions, some forgotten sit-com gabbing quietly in the background. Beer cans and bowls of snacks are stacked like Russian dolls on the stained old coffee table and four pairs of tired, smiling eyes meet his as he leans against the doorframe.

“Hey, Nana,” he whispers. “Sorry, did I wake you guys?”

“No honey, you’re quiet as a mouse. These awful girls simply couldn’t leave an old woman to her sleep,” she scolds, and her daughters-in-law laugh sheepishly.

“My house, my rules,” Ellen snarks, bumping Millie affectionately with her hip as she passes, ducking the swatting hand that aims for her head. “What’s up, kid? You look like someone kicked your puppy.”

Dean tries to inject some cheer into his expression. “Do I?” He sounds unconvincing even to his own ears, and winces as he watches every maternal instinct in the room whirr to life and catch him in the crosshairs.

“Anything the matter?” Kate asks concernedly. Mary says nothing, but holds her son’s gaze steadily. Dean shrugs. “Naw, just bad dreams. Y’all know the drill.”

Sympathetic hums ring out throughout the room, but the worry in his Mom and Nana’s faces hurts the most. War wives see too much. He rubs his eyes and smiles winningly, reassuringly, the best little boy in the world. Ain’t no point in dragging everybody down with him, no point ruining what looks like a hell of a slumber party. You’d think forty years would be enough time for chatting but there was apparently enough ground left to tread for Mary, Kate and Ellen to chatter away until dawn at least once a month. It’d bring a tear to a lesser man’s eye, which is why Sam wasn’t welcome at their sleepovers anymore.

“Well, sounds like an excuse for a drink to me!” Ellen says cheerfully, only to be shouted down. Well, hushed down. Dean figures yelling at Ellen is a frequently indulged-in hobby that didn’t justify waking up the rest of the house.

“Ellen, you say that about everything!” Mary snorts.

“You implying somethin’, Campbell?”

“I’m saying it, Harvelle, stop plying my baby with your hooch!”

“Excuse me that is Harvelle-Singer now, and-“  

“Mom, Mom!” Dean laughs, interrupting before Ellen can continue. He knows from experience that even good-natured ribbing can spark his aunt’s hot temper, especially when she’s tired. “Chill, no hooch. I’m just gonna hit the hay.”

“No, stay!” Kate calls from where she’s dangling off the edge of the sofa, beckoning him closer. “You should talk about it.”

He shifts uncomfortably. He’s never been much of a sharer. It’s no slight against his stepmom, no way- if Kate hadn’t married his Dad then there’d be no Adam. The world would be a far more boring place without the little brat hanging around. And she’d been around years before that anyways, cooling his fevers and wrapping his cuts ever since she was little. The consummate nurse. There’s not much he won’t talk to her about. But this, this is- He shakes his head.

“Sorry,” he smiles sadly, “Not much to talk about.” He straightens up, drains his glass and kisses them all goodnight, trying not to feel horribly guilty about the silence he leaves in his wake.

He plays Flappy Bird on his phone for about twenty minutes, too tired to sleep. The itchy-hot pressure of exhaustion presses against the bones of his face but his mind won’t quiet down. The little bird smacks into the top of a pillar and dies. Stupid bastard.

Maybe it’s a parallel for his life or some shit. Deep.

Deliberate footsteps sound off behind his door, enough to sound an approach but not so loud as to wake Sam and Jo, directly downstairs, or Bobby in his and Ellen’s room up the hall. He’d drawn a dick on Sam’s face and a sweet goatee on Jo to try cheer himself up. They hadn’t made a peep, and his smile had long worn off. He wondered if someone was about to yell at him for that.

He stands and opens his door, smiling down when he sees Mary. The soft light of the hall tarnishes her fair hair a burnished copper, softens the lines of her face. Her pyjamas are loose and pale lilac. She kinda looks like an angel. The traditional kind, with halos and stuff. He’d had this friend once, a couple of ‘em actually, who took real exception to people thinking angels were sweet and gentle.

_Angles are warriors of God. I’m named for a soldier._

But that was years ago, and if he wanted to think his Mama was an angel then he was a grown man and he could do as he liked.

“Mind if I come in?”

“Nope.”

He doffs an imaginary cap as he holds the door for her and her smile widens. She sits beside him on his bed and he tolerates her hand stroking the side of his face for a minute, trying not to screw up his face and shake his head. She’s enough kids in their angsty teenage years, someone had to be the model son. It feels nice, besides. Comforting. He scoots back and away until he’s leaned against the wall. She sits Indian style and twists her torso until she faces him.

Her eyes squint over his shoulder and he knows she’s using the dim light coming in from the hall to read the tattered posters stuck up there. There’s probably a moon outside tonight, but it’s not shining down on him. The wall’s a mess anyway, every square centimetre of space viciously fought over by Sam, Adam, Jo and him. He thinks his head is resting right where Percy Jackson and co. are glaring over at some shady looking kid from the Gilmore Gang or whoever. Sam insists it wasn’t him that put it there.

Mary groans, popping her neck with an audible crack. Dean grimaces. Gross.

“I’m getting too old for sleepovers.”

“Ain’t no such thing.”

Not to him, anyway. He may or may not be currently revolving between three houses and three beds throughout the week, only giving his relatives some respite when some lucky lady thinks he’s worth a tumble and a place in her bed for the night. Dean prided himself on always being worth it.

Not that he’d had much chance to demonstrate lately. PTSD or something. Sucked.

He should stop thinking about sex around his Mom. That’s _really_ gross. He tries to look attentive to what she’s saying.  

“The girls keep me young. Keep me happy. I feel so blessed sometimes, when I think about it long enough. So blessed to have you all.”

He makes some sound of agreement and tries his damnedest not to look guilty.

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, how’s about you tell your Mama what’s got you all tangled up in knots?” she meets his eyes knowingly.

“Nothin’!" he protests. "Didn’t I say so downstairs?” 

He only calls her Mama on special occasions- when their old dog Colt passed, for one, or when her tears at Adam’s christening had seemed somehow different to everyone else’s.

Now he thinks on it, she probably fucking hates being called that.

 He thinks he called for his Mama after waking up from his first post-Afghanistan nightmare. The monsters had tried to crawl out his throat, scratched it right up with their claws, so when he’d screamed it sounded like he’d been choking on scalding sand. Mary had always been able to keep the monsters away.

He’s got a surplus of mothers, and he loves them all, but he’s only got one Mama.

She’s patient, doesn’t demand answers, but holds her ground. She can probably sense he won’t be at peace until he’s talked his thoughts out, acknowledged whatever it is he doesn’t want to think on. When he was little she’d called them his bratty little mind monsters, those thoughts he didn’t like that clamoured for his attention and held it until he played with them. He imagined them as naughty children, the kind she swore up and down he’d never been. He bets he was totally a little shit. Well he’s all grown up now, and looks like he still needs Mary to help fight the monsters.

“Just- I’d this dream.”

“Oh?”

“Not like- not like the ones from the Sandbox or anythin’. It was a memory, it was…nice. From when I was a kid. I was, uh, we were all in the yard of the old house, back in Lawrence.”

“That does sound nice.”

“I mean…like all of us. The old gang.”

She doesn’t get it, he can see. “From school.”

“Oh!” she says brightly, “Oh of course. The cousins, and pretty Lisa. And the, the kid with the puppet?”

“Garth.”

“Garth!”

“Yeah.” He shuffles. Talking isn’t helping. Maybe she senses that.

“Well, what happened?”

He coughs. Rubs his nose. “It was a barbecue. There were so many of us, I mean we barely fit into the yard. Pops and Nana, and Dad’s parents and…it was great. My whole family. What more could a guy want, right?”

He nudges her shoulder and tries, tries to stop feeling guilty. Feels like he spends his whole life that way. Because who the hell thinks like that? There’s folks out there with not a penny to their name and no loved ones to care about them. Dean’s not got the penny, but how can he complain? He’s got his family, he's happy. They made him go to therapy, and that gets rid of the nightmares, right? That made him better. Or why would anyone bother going?

He doesn’t deserve them. Not if he can’t be grateful for them.

“And there were…there was like, tons of other people there. The Novaks, like you said, and the Miltons. Sam’s girl.”

“Jessie?”

“Jess, yeah.”

  “Lovely girl. Such pretty hair.”

“Right. The Freely brothers were there too, the twins with the weird names. Aziraphale and Balthazar. And Cassie and Benny and Lenore. Y’ know, sometimes I kinda miss ‘em. Glory days.” He hums a few bars and they lapse into comfortable silence.

Then she surprises him.

“That wasn’t Adam’s tenth birthday?”

He chuckles. “Yeah, yeah it was.”

He’s amazed by how clearly he can remember it now. A sugar pink sash with silver lettering draped over his little brother’s chest- he’d bought it for him as a gag, but the BIRTHDAY PRINCESS! had worn it proudly all day. Shitty top forty hits blasted through tinny speakers around the tiny garden, stuffed to the seams with dozens of partygoers. The air was sweet and balmy with the smell of summer, that soft grass and wildflower smell carrying the chatter-hum of everyone talking and no-one listening, and mingling with the smoke of the barbeque. People were clamouring for hot dogs and burgers, John and Henry not able to flip them fast enough. Teenagers and kids clustered about the yard- Lisa Braeden and Cassie Robinson gossiping under the old apple tree, the Milton sisters and Lenore Cullen pulling at the birthday boy to plant kisses on his cheeks. Balthazar sniggering at the kid’s plight, his twin flushed scarlet and begging him to stop. Adam’s best friend Alfie dithering and wringing his hands, not knowing whether to rescue his friend from girl cooties or sulk.

And Cas, inhaling a cheesburger on the lawn chair next to Dean’s.

_“Dean. I think your brother’s exaggerating how much he dislikes being kissed.”_

_“Well fancy that.”_

_“Wonderful. There’s two of you.”_

_“Hey! You love me.”_

The night ended with them all yanking off their shirts and trying to pile into the paddling pool, shrieking and shoving and balancing on backs and shoulders, tactile as ever. Dean had put Viktor Henrikson in a headlock and threatened to post a video of the hall monitor downing cans of Budweiser to the school website until Cas had yanked him off, spluttering with laughter himself and calling Dean a raging assbutt. Dean had beamed up at him, the same smile that got him off detention and made old ladies swoon, and Castiel just shook his head and wrapped strong arms around his friend’s waist, turned them to pose for a picture. Dean had shivered and savoured the warmth against his bare back, may have covertly rubbed his cheek against his friend’s arm, soft and shivery. The water was freezing, splashing his sun blushed skin. He sure wishes he had a picture of that- there’d been some real lookers in their group.

“It was awesome,” he mumbles. He’s starting to feel better.  

“You were all so wholesome. It was like the Breakfast Club. You know that movie, right?”

“Yeah Mama, I know it.”

“Molly Ringwald.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Molly Ringwald.”

“Anna Milton would have to be her with that hair, or Charlene. Sam could be the bad kid with the long hair, I guess. Little Albie Novak could be the nerdy one who likes voting.”

“Alfie. Alfie Novak.”

“That’s what I said."

“Weren’t.” He’s starting to yawn properly now, sleepiness a heavy drag on his bones.

“Oh hush, we’re reminiscing. God,” she shakes her head, “I can’t believe you guys lost touch. You were all so close, for such a big group. Remember Charlene got all that birthday cake in her hair?”

Dean snorts. “Oh yeah. Pam threw it at her ‘cause she called Meg Masters a bitch.”

Mary cups a hand to her mouth. “Oh that’s awful, I really shouldn’t laugh…”

“It weren’t all pep rallies and sleepovers. Charlie hated Meg’s guts. Suppose it’s no wonder we fought as much as we did, all those clashing personalities…should’ve seen us trying to order a pizza. Or pick a movie.” 

“I suppose I would have found it difficult to see you hanging out with some of those characters. I mean, Balthazar for one…” they laugh.

Dean readjusts himself against the wall, grimaces. “Tell me about it. Ugh. He was Gabe’s best friend.” Or Gabe's somethin', anyway. “And his brother Aziraphale was friendly with Cas. Remember Cas?”

Maybe it is helping a bit. Mary certainly seems to think so, chuckling with remembered fondness. “Oh, of course I do honey. Why, that boy lived in your pocket! Regular Tom and Huck were you boys.” 

“Yeah. Heh. Funny how things change.”

Not really. He's not laughing.

“You ever talk to him? To Cas?”

Dean shrugs. Shakes his head. “No. His cousin Anna, sometimes. But it’s like…after graduation, no one talked anymore. We’d a reunion or two, big Facebook group chat, the works. Guess people got caught up with college, and me and Benny enlisted…life just got in the way.” He clears his throat. “Bound to happen.”

Mary’s hand startles him when it squeezes his knee. “Honey, do you miss them?”

Christ, this is just what he wanted to avoid. Dean is a big boy. He’s not the lonely kid no one wants to play with. Everyone loses touch with their old high school buddies eventually, and it’s not like it wasn’t Dean’s own fault- he’d been so eager to get out of Lawrence, so enthusiastic about joining the army and doing his part and being a man. He never knew how good he had it.

What had he expected, anyways? For the world to stop turning? To arrive home to find his friends standing outside his house with a _“Welcome Home!!!”_ banner like they’d make when someone got out of hospital, or back from a long trip? Did he think they’d bother with train journeys, car drives and flights just to hang out every once in a while? Did he want everything to freeze in time, stay exactly the same, a pristine paused video just waiting for him to return and rejoin his life? No.

_Yes_.

Well at any rate, that wasn’t what had happened. Obviously.

“Mom, I’m pretty tired. I think I’m gonna go to sleep.”

“Okay honey. You do that.” She presses a kiss to his forehead like he’s a child, still her baby to comfort and coddle. “But you should think about whether or not you need to be feeling this way. Don’t trivialise it in your mind- you found real friendship in Kansas, and that’s no small thing. Why, I’d know that better than anyone. If someone gets in contact, you should think about answering. Or reaching out yourself. You’re allowed have more, Dean. I’m your Mom, I want you to have everything.”

He nods, unable to speak. Lifts up the duvet cover and slides in, makes a big show of it, but doesn’t speak.

“Okay, I’m going. Night night.”

“Night night.”    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real friendship, huh? Well, maybe. But that’s long gone, and Dean’s moved on.  

 

 

Sleep’s a long time coming. 


End file.
